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The search for a second suspect in an "ambush" on Los Angeles police was called off early Monday, and red and yellow caution tape barred entrance to the scene of the shooting.

"We don't know what precipitated the shooting," LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman told the Los Angeles Times, but "everyone's keenly aware of what happened in New York," and there is a "sense of uneasiness."

Sunday night around 9:20 p.m., two officers in a single patrol car were responding to a call and driving southbound on Hoover Street near 62nd Place. They saw a muzzle flash -- the visible blast from a gun -- and determined they were being fired at, Neiman said.

Neither officer was hurt, and they returned fire, officials said.

Police called a citywide tactical alert and launched a massive search. One person of interest was detained for questioning, but another man remained at large.

"It was an ambush," Deputy Chief Bob Green said. "They were fired upon without any prior contact with the suspects."

Neiman said, "It's very clear that the officers were in a black-and-white police car. The people who shot at these officers knew they were the police."

Around 8:30 a.m. Monday, one of the officers involved in the shooting showed multiple investigators around the crime scene. Investigators surveyed the east side of Hoover Street, where bullet casings from the gunman's weapon lay, according to police. Minutes later, investigators huddled around a gutter on the west side of the street, where they removed a weapon that appeared to be a rifle.

The setting of the shooting is a South Los Angeles neighborhood with primarily single-family homes, a few churches and a nearby high school.

The incident came less than two weeks after two New York police officers were fatally shot in an ambush...